Who can forget the tag ascribed to the invasion of Iraq - Shock & Awe! To add to the offensive, whilst the Americans kept a body-count of their casualties, deaths of and injuries to Iraqis were described as "collateral damage". Clearly no one thought, or cared, about the human beings "on the ground" involved in all of this. Robert Fisk [not only a veteran reporter - recognised as one of the last great reporters] having lived and travelled extensively in the Middle East for 29 years, has written a book [to be released shortly]. Fisks' newspaper, The Independant, is presently publishing extracts from the upcoming book. Read the relevant extract describing the night "the Coalition of the Willing" bombed Baghdad.
There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...
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